ABSTRACT

This volume investigates smaller and larger networks of contacts within and across the Aegean and nearby regions, covering periods from the Neolithic until Classical times (6000–323 BC). It explores the world of technologies, crafts and archaeological 'left-overs' in order to place social and technological networks in their larger economic and political contexts. By investigating ways of production, transport/distribution, and consumption, this book covers a chronologically large period in order to expand our understanding of wider cultural developments inside the geographical boundaries of the Aegean and its regions of contact in the east Mediterranean.

This book brings together scholars’ expertise in a variety of different fields ranging from historical archaeology (using textual evidence), archaeometry, geoarchaeology, experimental work, archaeobotany, and archaeozoology. Chapters in this volume study and contextualize archaeological remains and explore networks of crafts-people, craft traditions, or people who employed various technologies to survive. Central questions in this context are how and why traditions, techniques, and technologies change or remain stable, or where and why cross-cultural boundaries developed and disintegrated. 

chapter |11 pages

Introduction

Tracing Social Networks through Studying Technologies
ByAnn Brysbaert

chapter 1|18 pages

Disentangling Neolithic Networks

Ground Stone Technology, Material Engagements and Networks of Action
ByChristina Tsoraki

chapter 2|18 pages

‘Thou Shalt Make Many Images of Thy Gods'

A Chaîne Opératoire Approach to Mycenaean Religious Rituals Based on Iconographic and Contextual Analyses of Plaster and Terracotta Figures
ByMelissa Vetters

chapter 3|24 pages

Technologies of Sound across Aegean Crafts and Mediterranean Cultures

ByManolis Mikrakis

chapter 4|17 pages

A War of Words

Comparing the Performative Cross-Craft Interaction of Physical Violence and Oral Expression in the Mycenaean World
ByKatherine Harrell

chapter 5|17 pages

Ke-ra-me-u or Ke-ra-me-ja?

Evidence for Sex, Age and Division of Labour among Mycenaean Ceramicists
ByJulie Hruby

chapter 6|20 pages

Links of Clay in Neolithic Greece

The Case of Platia Magoula Zarkou
ByAreti Pentedeka

chapter 7|17 pages

Storage Technologies as Embedded Social Practices

Studying Pithos Storage in Prehistoric Northern Greece
ByDespina Margomenou, Maria Roumpou

chapter 9|16 pages

Business as Usual

Cypriot Demand for Aegean Pottery during the Late Bronze Age
ByAngelos Papadopoulos

chapter 10|21 pages

Technologies of Reusing and Recycling in the Aegean and Beyond

ByAnn Brysbaert